otto's war room banner

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Obama Wants U.S. “Comfortable” with Vast Surveillance

Barack Obama pulled out the “we’re not Big Brother” line again
Friday in the ongoing to effort to bamboozle people alarmed about the vast
National Security Agency surveillance of whole populations exposed by Edward
Snowden. The important thing to him is not that the surveillance is
curtailed, but that youfeel comfortablewith
it.

1) a new independent NSA review board that will publish
recommendations on protecting civil liberties 2) a new website detailing the
surveillance activities 3) changes to the Patriot Act authorizing the spying,
and 4) a new public advocate to argue cases in the secret court that grants the
NSA spying requests.

Reviews, public advocates, and a website (!) all with the
intention of making you accept the illegal busting down of virtual walls
breaking any remaining protection promised by the Fourth Amendment. Obamastraight up liedwhen
saying that

all these steps are designed to ensure that the American people
can trust that our efforts are in line with our interests and our values. And
to others around the world, I want to make clear once again that America is not
interested in spying on ordinary people.

Obama was especially pissed off that Snowden’s revelations
continue to be published via Glenn Greenwald inThe Guardian, and
in other media. These include irrefutable evidence – from the horse’s
mouth — of ongoing NSA programs which collect all metadata from very large
sections of people, includingStellar Wind, Boundless Informant, and X-KEYSCORE.

Nothing Obama announced Friday is likely to materially alter the
NSA’s ongoing mass collection of phone data and surveillance of internet
communications in the short term.

* Legal disclaimer: “Torture” here is defined as anything the
United States does not do, and conversely anything the United States does,
including waterboarding, forced feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes,
long-term solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, and the barbaric atrocities at
Abu Ghraib are, by definition, not torture, not withstanding any international
laws or treaties the United States is party to or has refused to sign.
Furthermore, “murder” here is also defined as anything the United States does
not do, and again, anything the United States does, including the execution of
innocent people, the killing of over 200 children in drone attacks, and the
deaths of millions around the world through coups, repression and war, is not
murder.Revolution — August 18, 2013revcom.us

gain public trust in the NSA programs and engage in a national
debate about surveillance. But he also has said he was comfortable with the
current programs. So he could say he spurred a debate and tried to address
privacy concerns even if no changes result.

The New York Timeseditorialized,
mildly, against the spying, apparently not satisfied with Obama’s sales effort:

The
programs themselves are the problem, not whether they are modestly transparent.
As long as the N.S.A. believes it has the right to collect records of every phone
call — and the administration releaseda white paperFriday that
explained, unconvincingly, why it is perfectly legal — then none of the promises
to stay within the law will mean a thing.

Obama’s
rhetoric rang like the May 23, 2013 address when he said he “wants” to close
Guantanamo and would remove an obstacle to prisoners’ release — which he
created — by putting a moratorium on releasing prisoners to Yemen.

Otto's Books

Books

Featured Post

By Harsh Thakor TODAY ON 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY OF BATTLE OF STALINGRAD LET US HAIL ERSTWHILE USSR WHO WON A VICTORY THAT WAS THE GR...

Webstats

Gonzo Journalism

RED DE BLOGS COMUNISTAS

The cost of maintaining US Imperialism is high!

No other country in the world puts as much of its budget into the military as the US. This country is the top imperialist power in the world today and that is costing us a lot of resources that are badly needed elsewhere.